"Prickly Pear Cactus"
And now for something completely different...(I'm a huge Monty Python fan!)....a pen and ink drawing....
by Lee Gordon Seebach
Integrity and Being Skeptical
Let's face it: relatively few people have integrity.
From my dictionary:
1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness: he is known to be a man of integrity.
Since I've been a member of this wonderful Steemit community for almost a year, I've been able to watch this platform grow and therefore have some perspective on the users and how it has evolved. I've been very impressed with the high quality of Steemians and the platform itself. I joined Steemit to promote my art because the idea of Steemit appealed to me: a decentralized network on a blockchain with its own economy and tokens. Getting a small reward was nice, too.
Now that Steemit is starting to take off, it doesn't hurt to have a bit of skepticism about the new users coming onto the Steemit platform.
For the benefit of my followers, please watch out for those without integrity who are here to take advantage of your trusting nature, game the system, and get rich quick. That's not what Steemit is about, at least to me.
What prompted me to write this is that yesterday, a new user commented on one of my posts and claimed that they upvoted and resteemed that post. Of course, they included a link back to one of their posts (something I would never do and never have done). Curious, I checked to see if they followed through. They didn't. I then did some more digging and found that they did the same thing on a friend's blog.
In short, be careful with all of the new users coming in. Don't just assume that everyone on here has integrity. It's not like "the old days" of Steemit when those of us who believed in the idea during "the dark ages" (as I've heard them called) stuck with the platform and kept posting and supporting it.
I flagged that user's comment and I encourage you to check up on what commenters say and call them out on their bullshit if needed. We do not need or want people without integrity on Steemit, do we?
I would hate to see the beauty of Steemit get ruined by liars and scammers, and we need to be on guard so we can continue to build and grow this great community.
Thanks for hearing me out on this.
Lee aka @chessmonster
"So many beautiful subjects, so little time!"
My website: Seebach Fine Art
Great post!
Beautiful drawing, love eating them. Must say I agree we must keep our platform sodially accetable to all, read a few posts that upset me but just did not reply. I just ignored them and dont follow anymore. Thanks for your wonderful post.
Thank you very much @bigbear ! I normally do ignore them, and it's best, but some need to be flagged, too, so their reputation is downgraded and they basically become non-entities on Steemit. At least, that's how I understand it works. It's one of the great things about the platform.
Thanks! @andrejj97
I agree, unfortunately there will always be scammers out there
Happily, the wise Steemit creators built in the reputation system to deal with them. Those creeps will be flushed from Steemit if they get flagged enough.
I think you are correct. It is my feeling there should be a way of managing all these so-called followers. Maybe in time. The last week I posted some articles related to that and it seems that more people are struggling with it.
Thanks and you don't have to follow me. I only find your story interesting.
@rolf-bakker Thanks for replying. I'll check out your articles...since you DIDN'T ask me to. Ha ha Have a great day!
Hi again @rolf.bakker I'm definitely no expert on how Steemit works under the hood, but I suspect that most of your followers are new to the platform and followed you just to do it. In other words, they probably never had any intention of checking out your future posts after hitting the "follow" button. I'd think that with over 500 followers, I'd get more upvotes, too, but I think it's the same with me, even though I've been on the platform since July.
Your car photos are beautiful, so that's not it. Maybe, too, you just need to keep at it. I know that for me, at the beginning, it was very difficult to get going. What REALLY helped was the Curie support I received. Maybe some of us early users were lucky to get that leg-up, because I really doubt that I'd be doing well on Steemit without them. I hope this helps, and good luck!
Thanks for your kind reply and answer. Because of people like you I will stay at Steemit. By the way, I took some time to look at your paintings. They are really wonderful. Especially the Riverrock compositions, I think they are great.
And thanks for your upvotes!
You are very welcome and thanks so much for your support! @rolf-bakker
so much detailing, loved it <3
Thanks! @olly 😀
the pleasure is mine sir <3
I assume you will be sharing the final outcome of the painting?
~a fellow Monty python fan
"It's......" @moneybags LOL This is a one-shot deal - just the pen and ink of this subject, although I've done many other pictures of prickly pears in oil and watercolor. Thanks for commenting!
I always enjoy your posts @chessmonster. So sorry I have not had the time to comment more. So glad to be on this ride with you!
Thanks for commenting! @gringalicious You're one of my flavorite Steemsters ! 😂
And yes, I'm enjoying the ride with you, too! 😊
Nice drawing! Do you mainly just stick with pen and ink? Or, are you using a few different medias for your work?
Also, I've experienced the same thing with some users over the past week on here saying they've followed me/upvoted or resteemed when they haven't. It's getting a tad annoying, haha.
@deadspace Thank you very much! I think this is the first - maybe second - pen and ink I've posted on my Steemit blog. The rest have been oils, pencil, and watercolors. Thanks for commenting.
So it's happening to you, too? Flag them if they are blatant spammers and scammers. It's the only way I know on this platform to discourage it because it lowers their reputation. We have the power to do something about it if we want. Have a super day!
Awesome! Just gave you a follow so I can continue to see your future work! Keep it up, man!
And, yes. One of them was actually a whole paragraph of gibberish basically, trying to compliment my post in super vague ways. I think he had a bot set up where it just quotes the title of my post to make it seem more authentic, I guess? I'm definitely going to continue to flag any posts I get like that, because it really is lazy, annoying and just kind of a crappy thing to do in general.
You too! Have a great weekend!
Thanks for the follow @deadspace ! I'll try not to disappoint. 😎
Just don't pay too much attention to that people. There always be someone to try and ruin your mood.
Hope you will clear your mind from unnecessary stuff and just dive into painting man.
I don't, so don't worry. 😎 Just giving a friendly "heads up" to my beloved fellow Steemians! 😀
Now you can remove weight from your shoulders!
Steemians are on guard and ready for action!))
So you can just relax and bring some more beautiful works of art :d
Ha ha! You're so right! Onward! 😀
I love the cactus sketch.
I also agree with you on those users that are simply trying to get more followers. It's annoying when you get a comment on a post with a "please follow me".
Thanks so much! @whistlejacket I'm glad to know that you agree with me, and that I'm not the only one who's annoyed. Thankfully, Steemit has the reputation system which is a kind of self-policing feature that we can use to downvote this type of abuse.
Nice art @chessmonster
Thank you very much @sapan